‘Hocus Pocus’ is the Blockbuster of Freeform’s ’31 Nights of Halloween’

Still going strong, and coming for your children

Freeform is only a little more than halfway through its ’31 Nights of Halloween’ event, but there is already plenty for the network to celebrate this year. The special programming block started on October 1st and Freeform has confirmed that ’31 Nights of Halloween’ had its strongest start in over three years. The numbers show that everyone is getting into the holiday spirit at the network this year and that “Hocus Pocus” is a solid gold hit for Disney.

This year the network pushed the event even farther than usual, expanding throughout the entire month of October. The early start payed off for the network and Freeform ranked number-one with younger women while the network’s ratings saw incredible boosts. Freeform also took the week’s top 8 cable movies in Adults 18-49 and Top 10 with Women 18-34.

Twenty-five years after its theatrical release, “Hocus Pocus” is more popular than ever. The film reached 8.2 million Total Viewers in its first week which is an amazing accomplishment.

Let’s put that “Hocus Pocus” viewership into perspective for you. If the average ticket price of $8.97 were applied to the film’s performance, “Hocus Pocus” would have had a weekend box-office equivalent of approximately $73.6 million in its first five days if it were released today. That’s running AMOK with viewers.

Expanding to the entire month of October for the first time, the debut week of Freeform’s “31 Nights of Halloween” grew over the opening week of last year’s “13 Nights” in Total Viewers by +11%, jumping to 598K viewers. The network also grew in Adults 18-49 by 2% (280k) and Women 18-49 by +4% (186k).

The newly expanded Halloween programming event scored solid double-digit gains over day one in 2017 across all key demos, posting its strongest start in 3 years. The event jumped in Total Viewers by 22%, up to 728k total. That includes a 42% jump in Adults 18-34 (250k) and up 47% in Persons 12-34 (302k).

During the first week of “31 Nights of Halloween,” Freeform ranked as the No. 1 cable network in the daypart among Women 18-34 (164k) and Females 12-34 (202k).

Led by three broadcasts of “Hocus Pocus,” Freeform aired each of the Top 8 cable movie telecasts among Adults 18-49 in its first week of “31 Nights” and each of the Top 10 among Women 18-34.